Dan Negrut, NVIDIA CUDA Fellow, Bernard A. and Frances M. Weideman Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Simulation-Based Engineering Lab, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Our lab has worked on several projects aimed at improving the mobility of autonomous rovers operating in lunar conditions. The design of such rovers increasingly relies on computer simulation. The talk will cover two main topics: it presents an overview of terramechanics models in robotics, and it briefly describes the sensing used in lunar mobility simulations.

Mohit Nitin Shenvi, Ph.D., Terramechanics, Multibody, and Vehicle Systems Laboratory, Virginia Tech: This talk focuses on the literature of snow characterization and on an analysis performed to identify the extent to which testing conditions affect the traction coefficient of tires using the ASTM 14-inch Standard Reference Test Tire (SRTT) on snow. Another area of focus will be the performance evaluation of an custom in-house device against the Clegg impact hammer and CTI penetrometer when employed in the field for measurements on a compacted snow test track at the Smithers Winter Test Center.

Paweł Tomiło, Ph.D., Lublin University of Technology. The session will introduce the hybrid-locomotion rover concept. The design of a hybrid robot combines the characteristics of wheeled and legged robots. The rover is equipped with a crawling mechanism that will allow it to climb steep slopes areas where a wheeled vehicle could slip due to loose ground. The concept of the rover will be discussed, the current state of research, and future work on the development of the rover will be presented.

RECORDING | TERRABITE — ​The 11th Asia-Pacific Regional Conference of the ISTVS was held online in September 2022, hosted by the Harbin Institute of Technology, PR China, and included presenters from around the world. The Conference Committee identified papers whose authors were encouraged to submit manuscripts for a Special Issue of the Society’s Journal of Terramechanics. The Special Issue that resulted represents a selection of the best papers of the conference: Best Papers of 11th Asia-Pacific Regional Conference of the ISTVS. ISTVS has been hosting online events for ongoing and recent research on terramechanics and terrain-vehicle systems under our Digital Event Series since 2021. Recordings from the series are posted to our YouTube channel. Please join us in two upcoming sessions dedicated to the best papers from this Special Issue. This first session is on February 1.

Dr. Peter Kiss, Professor of Biosystems Engineering, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Science. Dr. Peter Kiss and Ph.D. candidate Nihal Salman discuss a state-of-the-art on load-bearing capacity of soil as a homogeneous finite half-space and ongoing research in terramechanics and land locomotion.

Dr. Paul Ayers, ISTVS Fellow, Biosystems Engineering Professor Emeritus, University of Tennessee. The Next Generation NATO Reference Mobility Model (NG-NRMM) provides an opportunity for the utilization of physics-based Vehicle Terrain Interaction models. This presentation provides the framework for possible vehicle-soil interaction components to assist model development. The physics-based components include tire placement, surface loading, stress distribution, time-dependent soil compression (multi-pass), preconsolidation stresses, soil rebound, lateral displacement, slip sinkage, and soil bulldozing.

Dr. George Mason, ISTVS Fellow, Center for Advanced Vehicle Systems, Mississippi State University. A general discussion of the uses of mapping and geographical information systems (GIS) to build an off-road simulation environment. We present the typical input data fields for models such as the NATO Reference Mobility Model (NRMM) and websites that contain information useful in defining the attributes. We discuss some of the temporal and spatial issues and future work in GIS.

David Jelinek, Undergraduate Researcher, Center for Advanced Vehicle Systems, Mississippi State University. This presentation will overview the expansion of the DROVE dataset (database records for off-road vehicle environments) with fine-grained soil wheel test data. Contributed data originates from field/laboratory tests characterizing the tractive performance of wheels operating in dry sands. The overview extends from measurement acquisition to the digitization process and current applications. Variables measured during each test include the soil’s cone index, vertical load, and the wheel’s dimensions, torque, drawbar pull, motion resistance, sinkage, and slip.